In a surprise announcement yesterday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released new guidance that starting in 2026, any publications and supporting data resulting from federally funded research must be openly accessible on the day it’s published.
Here’s more from Ars Technica:
The US government is likely to be the world’s largest funder of scientific research… Yet, for decades, the scientific publishing system was set up so that the government (much less the people it represented) didn’t necessarily have access to the research it was funding. Instead, access was predicated on paid subscriptions to the journals the work was published in…
Under the new policy, … publications resulting from this funding be deposited in publicly accessible repositories on the day they appear in a scientific journal. They may still appear in subscription-only journals, but a copy must be made public. Separately, any data used in the publication must also be placed in a public-accessible repository.
By the end of 2024, agencies must have plans to ensure that information on everyone involved in the publications is also available in repositories. All the data and documentation associated with publications must have a digital identifier (such as a DOI) associated with them. By the end of 2025, all of these policies need to be implemented.
Several groups have issued statements in support of the announcement, including the Association of Research Libraries.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) enthusiastically welcomes today’s announcement… This acceleration of the public’s access to government-funded research is consistent with the research community’s increasing embrace of open-science practices, and with the need to address such global challenges as health, climate, and economic inequality.